Maybe others know this already, but I just discovered a way to easily reduce the level of close-to-rig clapping without much impact to the surrounding music, making normalization easier and/or the clapping less obtrusive.

I'm a school music teacher, and most of what I record are student concerts. I make edited CDs of every performance so that we can share the concert recordings with our students. The most difficult process for me during mastering has always been dealing with clapping from the audience when I go to normalize the overall level. Since there are frequently people clapping along to the music and/or applauding very close to the mics, the claps are very high in level relative to the music. This leaves little room to raise the overall level without resorting to significant compression, which I try to avoid for acoustic performances. The fact that I'm currently using the built-in omnis on my M10 does not help things (but CA14c's are on the way soon!)

Previously I would manually attenuate the applause between songs and/or edit the loudest claps individually, and then normalize. This accomplished the goal of raising the overall music level, but my edits were always very obvious and unnatural sounding. Today I was reading up on click/pop removal for vinyl transfer, and thought it might apply to this situation. The results were dramatically more natural sounding, and this process takes a fraction of the time. This would have saved me hours editing this year's concerts.

I tried this first in Izotope RX2, then again in Audacity. No suprise that RX2 gave me superior sounding results but you can similar results in Audacity also. Here's my process for both programs:

1. Select area to remove clapping2. Open DECLICK & DECRACKLE module3. Set preset to "Vinly record" (which enables the Random Clicks algorithm - you could do the same thing manually but this preset sounded great to me)4. Preview as normal, and double-check previewing with "output clicks only" to ensure music transients aren't being grabbed by the processing5. Make sure "output clicks only" is unchecked before processing.

I've linked a folder with audio samples as well as screenshots from Audacity and RX2. File names will tell you what was what as far as processing. The performance is an elementary school jazz band playing the end of "Jump, Jive, and Wail". You'll hear the audience start clapping along to the beat, then it immediately goes into applause. The M10 is on a camera tripod in the front row of the audience, almost dead center about 20' back from the band. And yes, this is in a CafeGymAtorium with loud HVAC. Let me know what you think of the results.

Maybe others know this already, but I just discovered a way to easily reduce the level of close-to-rig clapping without much impact to the surrounding music, making normalization easier and/or the clapping less obtrusive.

snip

Previously I would manually attenuate the applause between songs and/or edit the loudest claps individually, and then normalize. This accomplished the goal of raising the overall music level, but my edits were always very obvious and unnatural sounding. Today I was reading up on click/pop removal for vinyl transfer, and thought it might apply to this situation. The results were dramatically more natural sounding, and this process takes a fraction of the time. This would have saved me hours editing this year's concerts.

I tried this first in Izotope RX2, then again in Audacity. No suprise that RX2 gave me superior sounding results but you can similar results in Audacity also. Here's my process for both programs:

I had been doing this in audacity but to get all the claps down to music levels the declick settings I had to use ended up making the applause sound have a pumping effect. After I switched to Adobe Audition I found I got better results by selecting the applause area and applying a hard limit to the section with a db cut which brought the loud claps down but left the rest untouched. This resulted in an easy way to do the same thing and a superior sounding (at least to me) result.

I had been doing this in audacity but to get all the claps down to music levels the declick settings I had to use ended up making the applause sound have a pumping effect. After I switched to Adobe Audition I found I got better results by selecting the applause area and applying a hard limit to the section with a db cut which brought the loud claps down but left the rest untouched. This resulted in an easy way to do the same thing and a superior sounding (at least to me) result.

Hopefully this adds another tip to your post-processing bag of tricks

Yep, that's one of the methods described in the sticky thread on post processing - I'll give that a shot also. Thanks!

Great, how do you actually select a "hard limit" for clapping? What kind of db cut do you use? I use PEAK but i do have adobe audition I just never had used it.I have been using the pencil tool in PEAK to individually lower clapping, in the attempts to lower clapping in order to have the " highest db of the recording being music and not clapping, so that when normalizing it will normalize to the sound of music and not an applause.any help will be appreciatedi have been editing some acoustic shows and most have extended clapping after songs that are of a higher db level than any other "music " part.

Maybe others know this already, but I just discovered a way to easily reduce the level of close-to-rig clapping without much impact to the surrounding music, making normalization easier and/or the clapping less obtrusive.

snip

Previously I would manually attenuate the applause between songs and/or edit the loudest claps individually, and then normalize. This accomplished the goal of raising the overall music level, but my edits were always very obvious and unnatural sounding. Today I was reading up on click/pop removal for vinyl transfer, and thought it might apply to this situation. The results were dramatically more natural sounding, and this process takes a fraction of the time. This would have saved me hours editing this year's concerts.

I tried this first in Izotope RX2, then again in Audacity. No suprise that RX2 gave me superior sounding results but you can similar results in Audacity also. Here's my process for both programs:

I had been doing this in audacity but to get all the claps down to music levels the declick settings I had to use ended up making the applause sound have a pumping effect. After I switched to Adobe Audition I found I got better results by selecting the applause area and applying a hard limit to the section with a db cut which brought the loud claps down but left the rest untouched. This resulted in an easy way to do the same thing and a superior sounding (at least to me) result.

Great, how do you actually select a "hard limit" for clapping? What kind of db cut do you use? I use PEAK but i do have adobe audition I just never had used it.I have been using the pencil tool in PEAK to individually lower clapping, in the attempts to lower clapping in order to have the " highest db of the recording being music and not clapping, so that when normalizing it will normalize to the sound of music and not an applause.any help will be appreciatedi have been editing some acoustic shows and most have extended clapping after songs that are of a higher db level than any other "music " part.

Maybe others know this already, but I just discovered a way to easily reduce the level of close-to-rig clapping without much impact to the surrounding music, making normalization easier and/or the clapping less obtrusive.

snip

Previously I would manually attenuate the applause between songs and/or edit the loudest claps individually, and then normalize. This accomplished the goal of raising the overall music level, but my edits were always very obvious and unnatural sounding. Today I was reading up on click/pop removal for vinyl transfer, and thought it might apply to this situation. The results were dramatically more natural sounding, and this process takes a fraction of the time. This would have saved me hours editing this year's concerts.

I tried this first in Izotope RX2, then again in Audacity. No suprise that RX2 gave me superior sounding results but you can similar results in Audacity also. Here's my process for both programs:

I had been doing this in audacity but to get all the claps down to music levels the declick settings I had to use ended up making the applause sound have a pumping effect. After I switched to Adobe Audition I found I got better results by selecting the applause area and applying a hard limit to the section with a db cut which brought the loud claps down but left the rest untouched. This resulted in an easy way to do the same thing and a superior sounding (at least to me) result.

Hopefully this adds another tip to your post-processing bag of tricks

If you look at the waveforms in your editing software, the clapping sections are distinctive. High narrow peaks - usually louder than the surrounding music or other recording. It can take a bit of trial and error, but I usually start with the hard limit at or below the peak level level of surrounding program. This way the loud claps are attenuated but the rest of the applause sounds pretty natural. I find this takes me much less time than highlighting and adjusting each clap individually and I've often got claps that all don't respond to the same click removal settings. If the overall applause is still too loud, the envelope tool is your friend.

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stevetoney

I use the noise reduction tool VERY sparingly because, in my experience, I think it's very intrusive to the rest of the master recording which you don't want to be touched. So, I've never liked the results I get applying the noise reduction in Audition 1.5 for clapping. I either isolate each clap and bring down the levels or use the hard limit tool.

Maybe I just need to find the perfect settings, but I've played with the settings quite a bit and never found anything that I like. I always found that the dynamics of the remaining sections were altered too much for my liking. My 'issue' seemed to be that I could never get the settings dialed in right for the noise reduction tool to work without causing the music on either side of the clap to sound like it's muted and/or underwater. So if I decrease the settings enough that so there's no impact on the music, it doesn't do anything to the clap...but if I increase the settings enough to eliminate the claps, the tool then messes up the sound of the music. Even momentary analog noise spikes, like someone kicking my stand or a beach ball hitting my mics, aren't effectively removed by this tool without the resulting sound being impacted. That said, I've had great luck using the tool to remove isolated digi noise spikes.

Having said the above, I'm not willing to sacrifice any on the sound of the music in order to deal with the claps, so maybe my comment is based on the fact that I haven't found any settings that work well enough for my liking. But again, I've tried and I've never found any settings I'm happy with, so I go with the hard limiter or the 'isolate the clap' method.

EDIT TO ADD: I'm curious to know if 'power users' have any luck with the noice reduction tool on clapping (vs. hard limiting). If they do, then I'd like to know what settings you use and/or how I can better apply the settings than I have.

I use the noise reduction tool VERY sparingly because, in my experience, I think it's very intrusive to the rest of the master recording which you don't want to be touched. So, I've never liked the results I get applying the noise reduction in Audition 1.5 for clapping. I either isolate each clap and bring down the levels or use the hard limit tool.

snip

Having said the above, I'm not willing to sacrifice any on the sound of the music in order to deal with the claps, so maybe my comment is based on the fact that I haven't found any settings that work well enough for my liking. But again, I've tried and I've never found any settings I'm happy with, so I go with the hard limiter or the 'isolate the clap' method.

EDIT TO ADD: I'm curious to know if 'power users' have any luck with the noice reduction tool on clapping (vs. hard limiting). If they do, then I'd like to know what settings you use and/or how I can better apply the settings than I have.

IMHO, noise reduction is never going to be the best choice for something like clapping because a noise reduction algorithm it's looking for steady-state noise to cancel (ex. HVAC drone, hiss, etc.) as opposed to intermittent random noise like clapping, etc. That said, I've never been satisfied with Audacity's noise reduction - it always has given me the phasey "underwater" sound you experienced, or it sucked out percussive transients from the music. BUT - the noise reduction in iZotope RX quite frankly is spectacular. It really is able to cancel the background noise without harming the actual music, at least to my ears. This is no help for claps or stand hits though.

Click Removal (or whatever your program of choice calls this) is made specifically to address intermittent noises, and like I said in my original post I was able to get great results with it - even in Audacity. Personally I was amazed with how much of a difference it made, but of course YMMV.

stevetoney

^ Thanks alot for this response. It really helps define the experiences you've had with these tools, as well as differentiate what didn't work. It also helps to know that you had the same experiences I had with the tools I mentioned that I've used. It's really exciting to know that there is a good tool out there for clapping!

For some reason, in my initial response I didn't key in on the fact that you were talking about the click reduction tool, not the noise reduction tool. Cool! Thanks for the tip!

So if one is to " select portion of recording needing clap removal" then what do i do?do I set hard limit?do I use click removal for clapping?

anyone suggest steps - I know we all may use different software, for example I use PEAK with some plug ins. But instinctively they most use the same or close to the same steps they just might call the process a different name.so after selecting section of recording that needs to decrease clapping--what would be the next steps? would I use hard limiter first? then some sort of click removal? then envelop? of course I dont know how to use the envelop at all.also how do you know what to set hard limit at? and how actually does one do it?

Great, how do you actually select a "hard limit" for clapping? What kind of db cut do you use? I use PEAK but i do have adobe audition I just never had used it.I have been using the pencil tool in PEAK to individually lower clapping, in the attempts to lower clapping in order to have the " highest db of the recording being music and not clapping, so that when normalizing it will normalize to the sound of music and not an applause.any help will be appreciatedi have been editing some acoustic shows and most have extended clapping after songs that are of a higher db level than any other "music " part.

Maybe others know this already, but I just discovered a way to easily reduce the level of close-to-rig clapping without much impact to the surrounding music, making normalization easier and/or the clapping less obtrusive.

snip

Previously I would manually attenuate the applause between songs and/or edit the loudest claps individually, and then normalize. This accomplished the goal of raising the overall music level, but my edits were always very obvious and unnatural sounding. Today I was reading up on click/pop removal for vinyl transfer, and thought it might apply to this situation. The results were dramatically more natural sounding, and this process takes a fraction of the time. This would have saved me hours editing this year's concerts.

I tried this first in Izotope RX2, then again in Audacity. No suprise that RX2 gave me superior sounding results but you can similar results in Audacity also. Here's my process for both programs:

I had been doing this in audacity but to get all the claps down to music levels the declick settings I had to use ended up making the applause sound have a pumping effect. After I switched to Adobe Audition I found I got better results by selecting the applause area and applying a hard limit to the section with a db cut which brought the loud claps down but left the rest untouched. This resulted in an easy way to do the same thing and a superior sounding (at least to me) result.

Hopefully this adds another tip to your post-processing bag of tricks

If you look at the waveforms in your editing software, the clapping sections are distinctive. High narrow peaks - usually louder than the surrounding music or other recording. It can take a bit of trial and error, but I usually start with the hard limit at or below the peak level level of surrounding program. This way the loud claps are attenuated but the rest of the applause sounds pretty natural. I find this takes me much less time than highlighting and adjusting each clap individually and I've often got claps that all don't respond to the same click removal settings. If the overall applause is still too loud, the envelope tool is your friend.

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stevetoney

^ By his responses, I think the OP of this thread is saying that the Click Removal tool is more effective at minimizing the claps than the Hard Limit tool. That said, I haven't use the Click Removal tool for claps, I can only speak to how I use the Hard Limit tool, which I've found can be quite efffective in situations where the level of the clap is alot higher than the level of the music.

OK, so the times that I've found hard limiting to be effective is when the clapper is close to the mics and, when looking at the sound signature in your software, you see distinctive spikes where the clap happens. If the level of the clapping does not cause a level spike, in other words the clap level is the same or lower than the level of the music, then the hard limit tool won't help at all.

What you want to do then is determine what are the peak levels of the music and set the limiter so that it cuts off the levels of the clapping so that they're attenuated to about the same level as the music. This won't do anything to eliminate the clapping, but at least it will make the clapping less annoying since the levels won't be so loud on the master recording.

So, if the music is peaking around -10db and the claps peak above that, then set the limiter for sounds louder than...maybe -9.5db.

Now, you can normalize levels on the entire recording and the level of the claps will only be a half db louder than the level of the music, whereas before hard limiting the claps might have been 10db or more louder. I don't like to set the limiter lower than that, because then you're also going to attenuate the peak levels of the music.

^ By his responses, I think the OP of this thread is saying that the Click Removal tool is more effective at minimizing the claps than the Hard Limit tool. That said, I haven't use the Click Removal tool for claps, I can only speak to how I use the Hard Limit tool, which I've found can be quite efffective in situations where the level of the clap is alot higher than the level of the music.

OK, so the times that I've found hard limiting to be effective is when the clapper is close to the mics and, when looking at the sound signature in your software, you see distinctive spikes where the clap happens. If the level of the clapping does not cause a level spike, in other words the clap level is the same or lower than the level of the music, then the hard limit tool won't help at all.

What you want to do then is determine what are the peak levels of the music and set the limiter so that it cuts off the levels of the clapping so that they're attenuated to about the same level as the music. This won't do anything to eliminate the clapping, but at least it will make the clapping less annoying since the levels won't be so loud on the master recording.

So, if the music is peaking around -10db and the claps peak above that, then set the limiter for sounds louder than...maybe -9.5db.

Now, you can normalize levels on the entire recording and the level of the claps will only be a half db louder than the level of the music, whereas before hard limiting the claps might have been 10db or more louder. I don't like to set the limiter lower than that, because then you're also going to attenuate the peak levels of the music.

For example, claps are at -6.0 db and the music is at -16 db. So how would one set limiter? I always try to make sure the music at any one point is louder than any claps. so when i normalize the entire recording it will normalize to the music and not the clap

I've found applying limiting or compression to only the applause sections -- rather than the file in its entirety -- works quite well. There's often a quiet(er) musical moment at the end of songs, but before applause...and after applause, but before the start of songs. This allows me to compress the applause down to the level of the music at the time the applause starts, which is often -- but not always -- lower than much of the rest of the music. $0.02

For example, you might have a file with applause peaking at -3 dB, music peaking at -9 dB, but the music immediately before and after a section of applause only peaks at -15 dB. In this case, apply compression / limiting to the applause section only, knocking it down to -15 dB. Whereas if you apply compression / limiting to the entire file, the lowest you could knock down the applause would be -9 dB.

stevetoney

^ Thats what I do too. Sometimes you can get some funky looking waveforms, because if people clap for a long time you'll get a blocky looking section to your waveform that looks kinda out of place when you zoom out, but who cares about that.

In fact, now that you mention this point Brian, I have used the combo of both the Hard Limit and the 'zoom in on each clap' method. For applause at the end of the song, I do what you suggest, but if there are some isolated instances where one or two people get goofy during a song, I'll zoom in on the clap and adjust it manually so that the music is left unaffected.

« Last Edit: July 09, 2013, 01:43:33 PM by tonedeaf »

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stevetoney

For example, claps are at -6.0 db and the music is at -16 db. So how would one set limiter? I always try to make sure the music at any one point is louder than any claps. so when i normalize the entire recording it will normalize to the music and not the clap

I only use Audition v1.5, so here are the steps/clicks I use...

> Effects> Amplitude > Hard Limiting

The last click brings up a 'Hard Limiting' menu. Using the examples you've described above, here are the settings I would choose in the 'Hard Limiting' menu (the underlined section is what I enter)...

Clearnly the most important number is the first one. By picking -15.5db above, Audition will only choose the sounds that exceed -15.5db level. That means your music is left untouched.

To be honest, I'm not sure if the other numbers I've shown are the best settings or not. 0, 7, and 100 are what I always enter as defaults.

For example, I've always chosen 0db for the second item mainly because I don't understand it. Clearly, you don't want to enter a positive number here if you want to minimize clapping, but in writing this response, it occurs to me that perhaps entering a negative number would be good. In the help section of Audition, this is the description of that function...

Boost Input ByPreamplifies audio before you limit it, so you can make a selection louder and ensure that no clipping occurs (similar to what is commonly done with the audio on TV commercials).

My best suggestion would be to enter different numbers and see what is the effect on your sample then pick whichever works the best.

So if one is to " select portion of recording needing clap removal" then what do i do?do I set hard limit?do I use click removal for clapping?

anyone suggest steps - I know we all may use different software, for example I use PEAK with some plug ins. But instinctively they most use the same or close to the same steps they just might call the process a different name.so after selecting section of recording that needs to decrease clapping--what would be the next steps? would I use hard limiter first? then some sort of click removal? then envelop? of course I dont know how to use the envelop at all.also how do you know what to set hard limit at? and how actually does one do it?

Great, how do you actually select a "hard limit" for clapping? What kind of db cut do you use? I use PEAK but i do have adobe audition I just never had used it.I have been using the pencil tool in PEAK to individually lower clapping, in the attempts to lower clapping in order to have the " highest db of the recording being music and not clapping, so that when normalizing it will normalize to the sound of music and not an applause.any help will be appreciatedi have been editing some acoustic shows and most have extended clapping after songs that are of a higher db level than any other "music " part.

Maybe others know this already, but I just discovered a way to easily reduce the level of close-to-rig clapping without much impact to the surrounding music, making normalization easier and/or the clapping less obtrusive.

snip

Previously I would manually attenuate the applause between songs and/or edit the loudest claps individually, and then normalize. This accomplished the goal of raising the overall music level, but my edits were always very obvious and unnatural sounding. Today I was reading up on click/pop removal for vinyl transfer, and thought it might apply to this situation. The results were dramatically more natural sounding, and this process takes a fraction of the time. This would have saved me hours editing this year's concerts.

I tried this first in Izotope RX2, then again in Audacity. No suprise that RX2 gave me superior sounding results but you can similar results in Audacity also. Here's my process for both programs:

I had been doing this in audacity but to get all the claps down to music levels the declick settings I had to use ended up making the applause sound have a pumping effect. After I switched to Adobe Audition I found I got better results by selecting the applause area and applying a hard limit to the section with a db cut which brought the loud claps down but left the rest untouched. This resulted in an easy way to do the same thing and a superior sounding (at least to me) result.

Hopefully this adds another tip to your post-processing bag of tricks

If you look at the waveforms in your editing software, the clapping sections are distinctive. High narrow peaks - usually louder than the surrounding music or other recording. It can take a bit of trial and error, but I usually start with the hard limit at or below the peak level level of surrounding program. This way the loud claps are attenuated but the rest of the applause sounds pretty natural. I find this takes me much less time than highlighting and adjusting each clap individually and I've often got claps that all don't respond to the same click removal settings. If the overall applause is still too loud, the envelope tool is your friend.

I zoom in almost all of the way I can, and highlight each clap. Then I just reduce the gain of that clap by around -6db

cashandkerouac

the sound of loud, sharp clapping close to a microphone is one of the most annoying and unmusical sounds i can think of.

i use Adobe Audition 5.5 and deal with each clap individually via the "Auto Heal" function. you have to zoom in to highlight only the duration of a single clap (nothing more) and treat each one individually. it is extremely tedious and time consuming, but the results are amazing and very natural sounding if you do it right. normal claps close to the mic pretty much disappear; loud claps close to the mic do not disappear, but they are significantly attenuated and are made to sound like they are much farther away from the mic than they really are.

caution: if you try the Auto Heal function in Audition, do not attempt to group claps together or you will be very disappointed with the results.

For some reason BIAS PEAK does not allow you to ZOOM all the way in on a single clap -select it and by "highlight area" and use limiter or decrease gain or any other compression other than the PENCIL tool.

For some reason BIAS PEAK does not allow you to ZOOM all the way in on a single clap -select it and by "highlight area" and use limiter or decrease gain or any other compression other than the PENCIL tool.

Yes it does - you click the wheel and then scroll it to zoom in/out. Or you use the +/- icons on the toolbar. The included compressor/limiter plugin for Peak is called Sqweez. Never used Peak so I can't help you further but here's the manual: http://bias-inc.com/downloads/documentation/

Or try one of these methods (Limiting / Compression / Click Removal) in Audacity. I just tried Audacity's Hard Limiter and it's very simple but effective. You only need to adjust the first setting (dB limit) which is what other programs would call "threshold". Set it just above the highest musical peak in the section that has clapping (as Tonedeaf suggests -15.5 dB for your example). http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Hard_Limiter

^ By his responses, I think the OP of this thread is saying that the Click Removal tool is more effective at minimizing the claps than the Hard Limit tool. That said, I haven't use the Click Removal tool for claps, I can only speak to how I use the Hard Limit tool, which I've found can be quite efffective in situations where the level of the clap is alot higher than the level of the music.

I don't know that Click Removal is more effective; I just wanted to share this method because I hadn't seen it used for this before and saved me a lot of time.

Something I just discovered though: If you zoom in to the sample level, you will see that a Hard Limiter clips the waveform at your threshold setting (at least it does in Audacity) whereas Click Removal as I'm using it lowers the level of the clap without clipping. It may seem obvious that a hard limiter operates this way, but maybe less obvious that click removal does not. On clapping I don't think it matters but thought it was worth mentioning.

"Don't ever take an all or nothing attitude when it comes to making a differenceand being beautiful and making the world a beautiful place through your actions. Every little bit is registered. Every little bit. So be as beautiful as you can as often as you can"

"It'll never be over, 'till we learn."

"My dream is to get a bus and get the band and just go coast to coast. Just about everything else except music, is anti-musical. That's it. Music's the thing." - Jeb Puryear

stevetoney

^ LOL. I have a taper dream that involves me owning a venue that books bands that everybody wants to see so much that they'd put on muzzles and mittens upon entering the venue. I like the mitten method of clap attenuation.

In Audition I use a set of compression presets that have different "top end" limit slopes with null impact up to a top limit and compress downward towards 0dB. Fool around with different combinations of "the hook" and see what works best in any given situation.

Attachments are typical. Attack/Release settings are default I think.

This works, for me, better than across the board hard limiting as it does keep some of the variability of the peaks of the original clap pattern in tact as opposed to "butter sticking" the entire passage to a max level. It's all 'bout bein' natchil IMO.

stevetoney

In Audition I use a set of compression presets that have different "top end" limit slopes with null impact up to a top limit and compress downward towards 0dB. Fool around with different combinations of "the hook" and see what works best in any given situation.

Attachments are typical. Attack/Release settings are default I think.

This works, for me, better than across the board hard limiting as it does keep some of the variability of the peaks of the original clap pattern in tact as opposed to "butter sticking" the entire passage to a max level. It's all 'bout bein' natchil IMO.

I appreciate your comment, but really don't understand it without playing around with the dynamic processing tool, which I've never done because I don't understand it (hows that for a circular sentence?). That said, if you're isolating individual claps and using one of 7 or 8 presets to keep it natchil, why not just zoom in and use the manual method?

This question isn't a challenge, I'm just curious and trying to learn from your comment.

Also, since the first two paragraphs of your response really lost me but I'd LOVE to learn how to use this tool, if you have the time to explain a little more basically, I'd appreciate it. I don't understand what you mean when you say 'null impact' 'compress downwards towards 0 db' and 'attachments are typical'. But really, the more basic question is how does one use this particular tool and where is it useful (besides clap attenuation). Thanks in advance.

If you look at the waveforms in your editing software, the clapping sections are distinctive. High narrow peaks - usually louder than the surrounding music or other recording. It can take a bit of trial and error, but I usually start with the hard limit at or below the peak level level of surrounding program. This way the loud claps are attenuated but the rest of the applause sounds pretty natural. I find this takes me much less time than highlighting and adjusting each clap individually and I've often got claps that all don't respond to the same click removal settings. If the overall applause is still too loud, the envelope tool is your friend.

This is why I use a limiter in general; once I figured out the loudest part I want to remain untouched, I shave off everything above that. I like that for clapping for two reasons; they don't have much sustain energy and part of what I find so offensive with them is the transient more so than the sound.

Your results will be based off of two things; you're ability to figure out that break-even point where you're not adversely harming the content you want to keep and second, the quality of your limiter plugin (they aren't all equal... Some can dig deeper without noticeable sonic impairment).

IMHO, noise reduction is never going to be the best choice for something like clapping because a noise reduction algorithm it's looking for steady-state noise to cancel (ex. HVAC drone, hiss, etc.) as opposed to intermittent random noise like clapping, etc. That said, I've never been satisfied with Audacity's noise reduction - it always has given me the phasey "underwater" sound you experienced, or it sucked out percussive transients from the music. BUT - the noise reduction in iZotope RX quite frankly is spectacular. It really is able to cancel the background noise without harming the actual music, at least to my ears. This is no help for claps or stand hits though.

100ms is a long release for a hard limiter, especially on applause. I'd try 1ms or less.

Good digital limiters are lookahead such that they effectively have no attack time--the attack will be applied in advance of the peak.

QFT. beat me to it.

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"This is a common practice we have on the bus; debating facts that we could easily find through printed material. It's like, how far is it today? I think it's four hours, and someone else comes in at 11 hours, and well, then we'll... just... talk about it..." - Jeb Puryear

Tone, I made the attachments so as to avoid a long winded description of what the tool does, hoping the graphical representation would provide the "thousand words" business... that and I'm not really all that technically proficient as to what is supposed to be going on with the process, I just find that I seem to have been able to harness it for my purposes. In your reply you suggest that I'm addressing each clap individually, but I'm not. Why? Well because it's time consuming that's why. This provides a bit of automation and a result that I'm able to live with. I select the stretch of offensive audience appreciation, make a judgment as to how hard to hit/limit the max clap level, apply the preset and BOOM! Move on to the next offense. It will work on individual incidences for sure, but it shines as a block editor. (I used to remove the ass hat clappers altogether but in my old age I have less time to obsess over that so I now modify the offenders by making it seem as though I've moved them... over there ------>| )

The other part, I will try to coach you through it though, since you asked and since you haven't tried the tool yet. Perhaps it will give you a little push... Buckle up, this could get wordy and keep in mind that specific details apply only to the Audition DAW.

In the graphical shot of the dynamics processing tool you saw a graph which has dB across the bottom and on the right side. These are sound levels, soft to loud, running LT to RT and Bottom to Top respectively. These axis represent input levels (original signal) along the bottom and output levels (processed signal) up and down.... Here, this is from the HELP pages of Audition, which I have to say are written well enough to have given me all the insight I need to make me happy....

The graph depicts input level along the x-axis (left and right) and the new output level along the y-axis (up and down). A line that flows directly from the lower-left to the upper-right (default) depicts a signal that has been left untouched {this is my NULL part}, since every input value goes to the exact matching output value. Adjusting the shape of this line will adjust the input or output assignments, thereby altering the dynamic range.

For example, you can boost all input that has a level of around -20dB, leaving everything else unchanged. You can also draw an inverse line (a line from upper-left to lower-right) that will dramatically boost low amplitudes while dramatically suppressing high amplitudes (that is, all quiet sounds will be loud, and all loud sounds will be quiet).

So, my set of presets allows me to address different ranges of clap peaks relative to the other signal levels around them. For example, the image I clipped represents an application where the peaks were relatively loud and I wanted to keep them relatively loud in comparison but tame the spikes. Jazz drum solos can be especially troublesome in this regard. In this example, everything in the selection to be processed, up to and including -16dB is unchanged or Null processed if you will. Then it starts to compress downwards the input levels on a ratio of 2:1 such that input levels of -8.8dB are reduced to output levels of around -12dB. From there input levels -8.8dB to 0dB are scrunched down at -2.6:1 such that the loudest output is around -15dB or so. Open the tool hover over the graph area and you'll see a read out like -8.8dB -> -12dB below the graph area. These number pairs depict how the output levels will change depending on the input level. Pick below the "null line" and the input is reduced; above it's amplified. I've built other presets, specifically for ass clappers, that start much lower than -16dB and begin knock down the peaks harder. The fact that the processing is based on ratios of input to output, instead of a hard limit value, makes for a bit more natural sounding applause which is, after all, the sure sign of a live performance. Without a little clap in our tapes, how would anyone know our work from store bought studio multi track productions?

In your most recent post re: DAW wish list, I'd agree that the best way to understand this tool set is to play with it, read the help pages, then read them again... and eventually you will start to understand the interconnectedness of the tool kit and how the various "edges" can be applied to shape your tapes for the better. Also, YouTube is a great help in learning general concepts and terminology. Have some fun!

^ LOL. I have a taper dream that involves me owning a venue that books bands that everybody wants to see so much that they'd put on muzzles and mittens upon entering the venue. I like the mitten method of clap attenuation.

Mittens? Great idea for every taper's gear bag.....if we all carried them, breaking them out could soon become the universal sign to "stop f#%king clapping so loud"........

"Don't ever take an all or nothing attitude when it comes to making a differenceand being beautiful and making the world a beautiful place through your actions. Every little bit is registered. Every little bit. So be as beautiful as you can as often as you can"

"It'll never be over, 'till we learn."

"My dream is to get a bus and get the band and just go coast to coast. Just about everything else except music, is anti-musical. That's it. Music's the thing." - Jeb Puryear

^ LOL. I have a taper dream that involves me owning a venue that books bands that everybody wants to see so much that they'd put on muzzles and mittens upon entering the venue. I like the mitten method of clap attenuation.

Mittens? Great idea for every taper's gear bag.....if we all carried them, breaking them out could soon become the universal sign to "stop f#%king clapping so loud"........

stevetoney

Tone, I made the attachments so as to avoid a long winded description of what the tool does, hoping the graphical representation would provide the "thousand words" business...

I understand about the screen shots. It's just that these special tools just aren't very intuitive and I've tried to figure out how best to use them, but haven't been successful. So, the extra detailed response that you provided is REALLY appreciated. I know it takes time to write.

I've got a recent recording with some really obnoxious clapping going on. I'll bring that up and then re-visit your explanation. If I have any more questions, I'll come back to this thread. Thanks again man!

If you have any more questions just post back or PM me. In the mean time just fool around with the tool. Use my screen shots to set your tools and see if they come close to doing what you want. Change the threshold or starting position/level and see what that does.

Lots of youtube vids on dynamic processing but they may not be exactly what you need... I'll see if I can put together a bit more for show and tell later.

Thanks to this thread I now also use the click removal in Audacity. I highlight the section that contains the clapping, for this show I'm working on right now I set threshold 200 and spike width 30. This got most of the clicks, the ones that were still there I used the "Repair" effect on (for that you have to zoom in all the way, it only works on a few samples).

If you look at the waveforms in your editing software, the clapping sections are distinctive. High narrow peaks - usually louder than the surrounding music or other recording. It can take a bit of trial and error, but I usually start with the hard limit at or below the peak level level of surrounding program. This way the loud claps are attenuated but the rest of the applause sounds pretty natural. I find this takes me much less time than highlighting and adjusting each clap individually and I've often got claps that all don't respond to the same click removal settings. If the overall applause is still too loud, the envelope tool is your friend.

This is why I use a limiter in general; once I figured out the loudest part I want to remain untouched, I shave off everything above that. I like that for clapping for two reasons; they don't have much sustain energy and part of what I find so offensive with them is the transient more so than the sound.

Your results will be based off of two things; you're ability to figure out that break-even point where you're not adversely harming the content you want to keep and second, the quality of your limiter plugin (they aren't all equal... Some can dig deeper without noticeable sonic impairment).

IMHO, noise reduction is never going to be the best choice for something like clapping because a noise reduction algorithm it's looking for steady-state noise to cancel (ex. HVAC drone, hiss, etc.) as opposed to intermittent random noise like clapping, etc. That said, I've never been satisfied with Audacity's noise reduction - it always has given me the phasey "underwater" sound you experienced, or it sucked out percussive transients from the music. BUT - the noise reduction in iZotope RX quite frankly is spectacular. It really is able to cancel the background noise without harming the actual music, at least to my ears. This is no help for claps or stand hits though.

100ms is a long release for a hard limiter, especially on applause. I'd try 1ms or less.

Good digital limiters are lookahead such that they effectively have no attack time--the attack will be applied in advance of the peak.

QFT. beat me to it.

How would one generally use a limiter? it makes sense to use limiter the way you put it, you find the loudest part you want to remain untouched, then shave every thing off above that? I understand the statement, but what would be a step by step instruction to get the result that is made in the statement?I use PEAK which has Squeez limiters, but possibly maybe most limiters are close to being the same?thanks for the help

not sure if I've posted in this particular thread or not, but the envelope ampilfy works great for this. I start at 100%, drop relatively quickly to 60% (usually) carry a flat 60% across the bottom of the envelope and then sharply back up to 100%, spline the curves (asymtotic). This gets a natural sounding 40% reduction in the applause. I have also combined this in a "reverse fashion" by amplifying quiet music using the envelope amplify function going from 100% up to 160%, then again back to 100 sharply. Combining these 2 has really worked well for me for a nice sounding recording of quiet music that was "enthusiastically appreciated" by the audience.

here's a screen shot of the applause lowering envelope, note the basis is 100% at the top, so the envelope goes lower than that below the top

and here's the 160% amplify upward. Note that the basis is 200% at the top and 100% in the middle, so the envelope amplifies when above the center

Of course, it goes without saying that the flat section in the middle where we are slope=0% should be "played with" until it sounds best to you. I use the 40% down and 60% up as what works for me and as sort of a maximum, above and below which I can really hear the amplification

If you're going to do that in Audition (that looks like Audition), just load it into the multitrack editor and automate the volume via envelop editing there. Non-destructive editing and then just export when you have the settings you want.

that's actually a soviet version of cool edit pro. I have those stored as presets, so it's pretty easy to do them, I don't generate those curves each time!

Question on this. The envelope works great for end of song clapping, but what hard limiting values should be used for clapping during songs, like when people clap at the end of a good solo? I used to have a couple of presets that worked ok, but I lost them when migrating from one pc to another. My hard limit has the following adjustable attributes

limit max amplitude to ____dbboost input by ________dblook ahead time _________ms (5....20) ------comes out of the box at 7 msrelease time _________ms (40...200)----comes out of the box at 100 ms

I'd like to be able to set it to achieve the same 40% reduction in clapping volume as I've done with the envelope

all suggestions would be MASSIVELY appreciated. I need to do this to something I recorded last night!

Revisiting... The trouble with envelope attenuation is that, while you know you can knock down the peak claps with it by what ever percentage, you also lower the well behaved clappers close by and the room in general. When you go too far, it sounds like the room has been moved well away from the action and you don't get a natural sounding reaction to the show. These are live recordings after all.* That's why I've more or less gone to dynamic processing for most of my repairs. It keeps the good local applause and limits the exuberant one or two at the same time... YMMV

* I have prepared "studio" versions of live shows where I've cut the house out all together and cross faded the gaps. They're alright if that's all you can salvage.

Revisiting... The trouble with envelope attenuation is that, while you know you can knock down the peak claps with it by what ever percentage, you also lower the well behaved clappers close by and the room in general. When you go to far, it sounds like the room has been moved well away from the action and you don't get a natural sounding reaction to the show. These are live recordings after all.* That's why I've more or less gone to dynamic processing for most of my repairs. It keeps the good local applause and limits the exuberant one or two at the same time... YMMV

Yes that's a good point. I tried envelopes once for this purpose but quickly abandoned them for the reasons you mentioned. Now I use a combination of declicking for periodic claps and/or limiting for continuous washes of applause to reduce the loudest applause to that of the highest peaks, and the results are much more natural.

* I have prepared "studio" versions of live shows where I've cut the house out all together and cross faded the gaps. They're alright if that's all you can salvage.

I did this once for a choral concert I performed in at the request of our conductor. I recorded the dress rehearsal run in the afternoon and then was able to leave my setup exactly in place to record the concert that night. The audience was exceptionally quiet and well behaved, and didn't jump in with applause immediately after the last cutoff. This gave me two takes of the concert that sounded close enough where I could make "studio" comp edits. I had plenty of clean hall tone to insert between tracks so the background was pretty seamless throughout the CD. Not sure I'd ever do something like that again, but it worked out surprisingly well.

Revisiting... The trouble with envelope attenuation is that, while you know you can knock down the peak claps with it by what ever percentage, you also lower the well behaved clappers close by and the room in general. When you go to far, it sounds like the room has been moved well away from the action and you don't get a natural sounding reaction to the show.

yes, the operative words are "go too far", to me moderate amounts are 30 to 40%. I know of no other way to do this with a natural sound. I am hard limiting the "in the song" clapping I was talking about earlier by reduction of approx 5 db. Seems to be working. and I changed the default timing per the recco to the lowest 40 ms setting......sounding great

Bumping to share my experience. Last night, I recorded video for a friends' band performance in a small room at a brewery (Sonic Studios omnis > Nikon D3300 > Quicktime mov file). I had a good spot for both video and sound, but at times people would raise their hands up to my head's level and clap right next to the mics (I was seated on a tall stool most of the time).

I tried the OP's method in Amadeus Pro and I'm happy with the result. Amadeus Pro has its own vinyl audio repair tool but it works much like the rest in that you zoom in on the loud 'click' and select only that area to repair. In some cases, it was more prominent in one channel, so I experimented with only repairing one channel but I ended up preferring to repair both channels because it sounds more natural.

Amadeus Pro has a nice feature where it can find the maximum sample for the selected area. So my workflow goes like this:

If you have a ton of claps, then this would be too tedious of a process. I only found about 20 claps that were louder than the loudest music sound, so it went pretty quickly and sounds natural to my ears.

I've found applying limiting or compression to only the applause sections -- rather than the file in its entirety -- works quite well. There's often a quiet(er) musical moment at the end of songs, but before applause...and after applause, but before the start of songs. This allows me to compress the applause down to the level of the music at the time the applause starts, which is often -- but not always -- lower than much of the rest of the music. $0.02

For example, you might have a file with applause peaking at -3 dB, music peaking at -9 dB, but the music immediately before and after a section of applause only peaks at -15 dB. In this case, apply compression / limiting to the applause section only, knocking it down to -15 dB. Whereas if you apply compression / limiting to the entire file, the lowest you could knock down the applause would be -9 dB.

When it comes to dealing with loud applause during a quiet concert, I've tried a number of these suggestions and have found there is really no "easy way" to get rid of them.

So I've been using an extremely labor intensive method in Audition - Auto Heal.

This requires that you select and process each individual hand clap. But I've found it to be extremely effective and virtually unobtrusive on shows I want to preserve for my own future listening pleasure.

As an example, I recently attended the Anders Osborne/Luther Dickinson acoustic show at the MACC here on Maui. There was a guy sitting two seats away who insisted on clapping louder and longer than anybody else. He was so loud that he hurt my ears even through my ear plugs!

Attached is a capture of what the applause looks like in spectral view. Following is a capture of how narrow the auto heal selection can be. For anyone whose DAW does not contain auto heal, what it does is replace the selection with a bit of audio from each side of the selection. I've found that even if the "clap" is occurring during the performer's comments after the song is over, there is still no discernible effect on the comment.

Once again, this is very labor intensive and in the case of that gentleman sitting two seats away - I counted between 40 and 80 claps after each song! However, once the claps are eliminated, it's possible to boost or normalize the remaining audio and not be blown away by applause when listening in headphones.

If you're going to put in the time and labor for the auto-heal, you could just select the frequency of the clap itself. Claps are usually 800hz-3k range, so you could just select those freqs and time and hit the auto-heal. Make sure you bind the auto-heal feature to an easy key command (I use Shift-1).

Although for claps, I generally just use a tweaked declicker from Ozone RX. Auto-Heal and RX's spectral repair work well for static in wireless recordings.

All told, I spent about 5 minutes working in each program. Now, not everyone is going to want to shell out for RX, but I suggest you try the tools in Audacity before you spend so much time and effort doing it the other way again.

All told, I spent about 5 minutes working in each program. Now, not everyone is going to want to shell out for RX, but I suggest you try the tools in Audacity before you spend so much time and effort doing it the other way again.

Thanks for the information - very helpful.

No, I did not try the click remover in Audacity but I did use it originally in Audition 3.0. I got similar results as the sample done in Audacity. However, the presence "main" loud clap is was/is still too prevalent for me when listening in headphones. I never tried knocking the claps down even further using limiting primarily because of lack of experience, so I'll try that next time.

I'll be interested to hear the results when the applause starts as a song is fading out rather than primarily on artist comments as in the sample I originally posted.

BTW, I usually use the Audition click remover with satisfactory results. However, none of the more automated processes I tried this time with my limited skills was satisfactory so I decided to bite the bullet and do the individual cleanup route.

I do have to say that I am impressed with the results you achieved using iZotope. After hearing your sample, I remembered that I have the basic iZotope music and speech cleaner that came with my Pinnacle Studio video editing package. I gave that a try after hearing your samples. It didn't seem to do as thorough a job as your version or the individual auto heal process I did - however - it did seem to get things to a manageable level with the slider set all the way to 10 (now if it only went to 11 )

LoveBuzz81

How can you attenuate/filter only frequencies that are above a certain db level? (for quiet performances with clapping 10 db's louder than the music.). This should be straightforward... not sure how to execute this with Logic or Audacity.

How can you attenuate/filter only frequencies that are above a certain db level? (for quiet performances with clapping 10 db's louder than the music.). This should be straightforward... not sure how to execute this with Logic or Audacity.

My preferred way in Audacity:

1. Highlight the area with loud clapping.2. Effect > Hard Limiter3. Set Residue Level to 0.7 Basically this softens the limiter somewhat making it not sound offensive like a limiter often does.4. Set dB limit to -12 or so. You may have to set it a little bit lower than you think because changing the Residue Level makes your setting here less than a "hard" limit.5. Hit OK, then decide if that does what you wanted it to without actually limiting the music. You will have to go back and forth and undo / redo a couple of times to get it where you want. Make sure to leave Residue Level at 0.7, but adjust the dB limit.

How can you attenuate/filter only frequencies that are above a certain db level? (for quiet performances with clapping 10 db's louder than the music.). This should be straightforward... not sure how to execute this with Logic or Audacity.

My preferred way in Audacity:

1. Highlight the area with loud clapping.2. Effect > Hard Limiter3. Set Residue Level to 0.7 Basically this softens the limiter somewhat making it not sound offensive like a limiter often does.4. Set dB limit to -12 or so. You may have to set it a little bit lower than you think because changing the Residue Level makes your setting here less than a "hard" limit.5. Hit OK, then decide if that does what you wanted it to without actually limiting the music. You will have to go back and forth and undo / redo a couple of times to get it where you want. Make sure to leave Residue Level at 0.7, but adjust the dB limit.

I don't see Hard Limiter under effects in Audacity. I'm using Noise Gate in LPX w/ the duck feature. Not too effective.

Just recorded some at a bluegrass festival where there is clapping and yelling after some solos or in the middle of solos while songs are being played. Any advice for that? Just limit the whole recording?

Just recorded some at a bluegrass festival where there is clapping and yelling after some solos or in the middle of solos while songs are being played. Any advice for that? Just limit the whole recording?

Just re-read the thread, almost everything in here looks needlessly time-consuming IMO. Using a limiter VST plugin in Reaper (I use FabFilter Pro-L) I'm able to find my threshold within seconds while the music plays and I can observe meters and see what's being limited and what isn't. I haven't made a selection regarding clapping in at least a decade. I spend a few seconds setting up a limiter at the end of my plugin chain, render and enjoy

I have always highlighted each clap and reduced the gain of that clap. Works great and sounds very natural. But this seems like the way to go

I do the same thing...1/100th of a second at a time. I don't believe in compression, and find this to be the most natural sounding solution. I'd like to know if the suggestions here are as natural sounding... Please let me know if you try them, considering we both seem to be of the same school of thought.